Huion Kamvas Studio 16

A milestone for us long-time TPCRers, we finally have an EMR slate competitor from a 3rd party, other than Wacom—the Huion Kamvas Studio 16.





Build looking very solid! And the specs seem respectable:

Appearance
Color Dark Grey
Dimension 384 x 234 x 11.9mm
Working Area 349.6 x 196.7mm
Net Weight 1.7Kg
Touch 10-point Capacitive Touch
Interface 2 x USB-C
1 x 3.5mm headphone jack
Stand Adjustable stand ST200
Screen
Resolution 2560 x 1440
LCD Type IPS
AG Glass YES
Full Lamination YES
Contrast Ratio 1200:1
Brightness 400nit
Response Time 14ms
Viewing Angle 89°/89°(H)/89°/89°(V) (Typ.)(CR>10)
Gamut Volume -
Display Color 16.7M(8bit)
Technical Specifications
Digital Pen PW550S Slim
Pen Technology Battery-Free Electromagnetic Resonance
Pen Resolution 5080 LPI
Pressure Sensitivity 8192Levels
Tilt Support ±60°
Sensing Height 10mm
Report Rate >300PPS
Accuracy ±0.3mm(Center) ±1mm(Corner)
Press Keys -
Hardware
CPU Intel® Core™ i7-1165G7
Mainboard -
Graphics Intel® Iris® Xe Graphics
RAM 16GB DDR4
Storage 512G SSD
Wireless Card Wi-Fi 6 802.11a/b/g/n/ac/ax
Bluetooth Bluetooth 5.0
Camera 5.0MP (Front-facing camera),8.0MP(Rear camera)
Speaker 4Ω/2W*2
OS Compatibility Windows 11 Professional

And a few highlights from the official page:

  • Multi-touch (wooh! :stuck_out_tongue: )
  • 100% Adobe RGB
  • Full Lamination technology and Anti-Glare Etched Glass
  • latest Huion PenTech 3.0+ technology
  • slim pen body design, PW550S
  • Fingerprint Power Button
  • kickstand supports angle adjustment from 30-75°
  • 58Wh battery
  • Price: $1699

Reviews:

Teoh says fan noise is low and it gets about 4-5hr battery life. Price seems reasonable for a true Mobile Studio Pro 16 competitor, with pro-grade display and EMR pen performance…and I’m getting slight VAIO Z Canvas vibes from the design. Exciting times. :smiley:

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Quality post! One question, does this have a built-in kickstand? The first image makes it seems like it has one, but then the first video at 2:20 suggests it doesn’t (“you will have to put in on a stand”).

Is that compatible with anything else?

This post seems worrisome:

https://www.reddit.com/r/huion/comments/od15bq/psa_that_pen_tech_20_is_a_lot_better_than_pen/

Valid?

From reviews I’ve seen, the new pen is excellent. I was very excited about this at first, but then I realized, with the low battery life, and large size, it’s not like I’ll be taking it around as a portable drawing tablet, so what is it for? Moving around my house to draw? I think for the price, I’m personally better off with the Kamvas 24 pen display that has touch and just keeping it on my desk as a second monitor and keeping an IPP as a portable drawing tablet. Though honestly, I’m not sure if I have room on my desk for the Kamvas 24 alongside my 27" Samsung monitor. Does Huion make a 16" touch display as well? That’s probably the sweet spot for me.

Yes, and that’s one of the things that sets it apart: it seems to combine the solid metal construction of the Z Canvas and the friction hinge kickstand of the Surface Pro, both of which are examples of non-trivial engineering.

(Teoh Review @~5:00)

I would say not applicable, because he’s mainly talking about initial activation force which is a property of the specific pen (while “PenTech 3.0+” refers primarily to the digitizer and pen transceiver hardware/firmware revision).

The Kamvas Studio 16 uses a new slim pen model, the PW550S:

With a 9.5mm diameter, the digital pen, PW550S, has a pencil-like design that will benefit long periods of use. It also supports tilt function, 8192 levels of pressure sensitivity, and felt pen nib replacement.

It’s possible that it could also exhibit high activation force, but if you look at Teoh’s line tests (@~20:40) he specifically says the “initial activation force of this pen is very low”. So I doubt this will be an issue.

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Any compatibility with Wacom styluses/digitzers?

Highly speculative, but there is evidence you might be able to use Cintiq Pens. Anecdotally, from this site:

On rare occasions, digital pens from Huion may work on XP-PEN devices and vice-versa.

Combined with Aaron Rutten’s discovery (@7:45), that Cintiq Grip Pens, Pro Pens (1/2/slim), Air Brush, and regular Intuos pen work on the Xencelabs Medium Tablet:

Since Xencelabs and XP-Pen share common digitizer tech (under parent Hanvon-Ugee), there’s the interesting possibility that Wacom pens might work with the Kamvas Studio. However, I’d message Teoh directly on this, as he can verify in-person.

If I wanted to use Cintiq pens, I’d get a Cintiq — I want a replacement for my Wacom One which:

  • uses the same stylus technology (rocking the compatibility w/ my Book 3, Kindle Scribe, and Note 10+)
  • has touch
  • is brighter
  • higher resolution
  • larger would be nice, but isn’t strictly necessary

Well after a spree of buying and returning several different very cool laptops with Wacom technology including the galaxy book3 360 Pro…

There are truly no workarounds with the pen issue I was experiencing. No ability to customize the right click on the pen or even have access to the full Wacom control panel. Tried many workarounds and tried to modify drivers etc to no avail.

It would seem for the mobile work that I do, needing specialized Windows desktop software… I had to go and get another MobileStudio Pro 2019.

It feels like lugging around a boat anchor, but it’s the right tool for the job. (Lisa you were correct, sadly.) There was probably some other huion or what have you that could have gotten the job done but I did like the option of having a GPU in a semi-flat 16" screen package. Got to be able to have the option of busting out a little Red Dead Redemption 2 in the hotel room on occasion haha…

I went ahead and upgraded the SSD to 2 TB and got 2 32gb 3200 ram modules bringing it to 64 GB. I use this as a traveling demonstration machine for conferences etc so it’s essential for me to have. Especially with a looming upcoming trip.

It’s very snappy. Now between this and my desktop cintiq I ought to buckle down and actually use it to make a short animated film or three again…

Curses Wacom!
With my luck they will come out with a mobile studio Pro 3 as soon as I get finished typing this and it will be half the weight with a modern chipset. (and be $4000)

:face_with_diagonal_mouth:
C

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Yes. She normally is.

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If they make that, and it runs Linux, I’m probably in.

Just curious, were there any GPU applications on the work/creative side that made you choose the MSP16 over the Kamvas Studio 16?

Just looking at the raw GPU horsepower on NotebookCheck, the Iris Xe Graphics G7 on the 11th gen Kamvas is rated about 50-60% faster than the Quadro M1000M on the MSP16. This should be reflective of the relative gaming performance.

But on the other side, Quadro drivers allow for CUDA acceleration in many specific workflows. However, they are quite niche, and I believe Adobe’s optimizations are written mostly for the Pascal generation and up (P1000 and RTX A-series), whereas the MSP still uses Maxwell.

Granted of course, you’re still getting best-in-class pen performance, though the price savings with Huion and potential reliability issues with Wacom (battery bulge and screen discolouration) shouldn’t be discounted.

Overall though, I was just hoping someone on this forum would be the guinea pig for the testing the first EMR Wacom competitor in years. :stuck_out_tongue: Nonetheless, kudos on your purchase, may it bring you many hours of tablet PC joy.

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You are correct on all points!

I’ve seen battery swelling on my last MSP 16 and the Cintiq Companion I had as well. (I’m not so sure that doesn’t happen to all lithium batteries at some point though. Seen it on an old Toshiba Windows tablet as well.) Seems to be a particularly bad problem with Wacom’s stuff. The video showing the fact that you can disable windows ink in the Huion control panel like Wacom’s and the GPU performance seals it for me. And honestly, if this doesn’t go well… Apple has me already in their grasp, and I’ll just stick to my iPad Pro for most of my mobile stuff in future. I just happen to need EMR tech on a windows device for this one very specific animation software I use / demonstrate.

Read your post and blew away the OS on the MSP and started a return on it.

I’m ordering the Huion. I’ll be the guinea pig! Ha ha

Won’t receive the Huion in time for my work trip, but the company I’m working with will provide me with a Wacom MSP 16 to use, so at least I don’t have to take that thing in my carry on luggage again! Lugged a MSP 16 to Europe twice in the past5-6 years, and it just tips my carry on only luggage into the uncomfortable zone for my back. I’ll chime in here and on the Huion thread when I receive the Kamvas…
Cheers,
Chad

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Haha, now that’s the spirit!

Hope you don’t mind me moving these posts to the Kamvas Studio thread. This is indeed exciting news, as I mentioned earlier the clean metallic construction of this tablet gives me serious VAIO Z Canvas vibes (and I loved that thing to death).

I’m now doubly wishing you the best and please give us all gory details: good, bad and well, beautiful in this case. :wink:

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My what huge bezels you have…

Lol, that is not huge my friend…

MobileStudio Pro 16:

And that was slimmer than the previous Cintiq Companion:

Welcome to world of art tablets, where 2" bezels were/are the standard. :wink:

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Also, should be noted that the 2019 MSP Pro 16 sports a Quadro P1000. Slight upgrade from the older model, and slightly better performance than Intel Iris XE integrated graphics. Still… I won’t have much use for anything CUDA performance dependent on the machine at any rate.

I’ll keep everyone updated on a review of the Huion. Should be in about a month or so.

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To be fair, larger bezels give a place to hold the device while drawing whereas the IPP is borderline too thin to avoid accidental touches sometimes. Granted, I’ll take the overall comfort and portability of the IPP over a Mobile Studio any day of the week.

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The right click problem is obnoxious and non artists will never know the feeling…
That being said
Have you tried Tablet Pro?

Sofar for me it works a good 95% of the time. I have a Samsung Notebook 9 Laptop.

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